They buckled under pressure from Ebay and Loui Vuitton (however you spell it)

As more people take them to task over this, more will follow. This will have in impact on process of adwords as G will no longer be able to let adwords users to themselves. Instead they will have to vet in some way, the terms used. Simply passing the buck onto the adwords poster is clearly not going to cut it anymore.

American Blind has been enforcing their trademark in Organic SERPS also, but directly against the "offending" site..

What is interesting about this Trademark, is that there is a distinct possibility that some could be searching for: American blinds indicating they are looking for blinds manufacturers in America, specifically...

The reason is because people spend lots of money creating a brand that did not exist before. It is very annoying and insulting to the people that built the brand when someone wants to 'borrow' it for their own financial gain.

If I wish to have the New York Times display my newspaper ad next to my competitor's ad I imagine I might have to fill out a form in which I must *write out* the brand name of my competitor. This is no different than telling G where I want my search ad to appear. The trademark appears nowhere *except* in my instructions to G and in the *users* search string.

If the internet is to be a truly democratic marketplace (its real strength, IMHO) then anything which promotes the competition of ideas and products is a good thing.

"building a brand" successfully does not mean hiding from the competition. If your brand is worth anything at all it should be able to withstand the competition.

Competition and a well informed consumer are good for *everybody* involved.

QFGuy, you are RIGHT on the mark! It's no different that your newspaper ad analogy, and it's no different than Jiffy peanut butter paying a supermarket to be placed next to Skippy in the peanut butter section of the aisle.

To apply the search analogy to the supermarket, Skippy is asking that, in cases where the consumer comes to the supermarket with Skippy in mind, that the supermarket clear the area, the aisle and the entire store of all products, leaving only Skippy in the store.

How lame. And if you're on the other side of the argument, please respond - the fallacy of American Blinds' argument seems so self-evident that I can only assume the case is being brought by someone with no morals.

Actually, in some ways it is more like Jiffy changing their name to Skipy and using a similar logo. You cannot pay a supermarket to be 'near' a certain brand. You can only pay slotting fees to be on higher/lower shelves, or the most expensive, end of isle displays.

What about all the money that Avis spends on TV commercials, which cause a consumer to go online and search for 'avis'? They deserve to find Avis, not Hertz. I think yes, when searching for 'rental car' their should be competition every time, but not for actual brands. That is the whole point of a brand.

Would you be OK if a spammer used your company name as the subject of its spam in order to get people to read the message?

Since I believe in the 1st amendment, I'd have to say yes. As long as they are not trying to fool the consumer into thinking that the email is from me then I'd have no problem with it.

In fact, just yesterday I got some snail mail from Sprint which had a comparison *right on the front* of the circular compairing themselves to AT&T!

Can you believe it?

Because the net effect is that Google is making money off someone else's brand.

As does many a publisher selling advertising! God Bless 'em!

Look, Trademarks exist to prevent brand confusion *not* in order to 'own' the word. The exist only so that someone does not try to confuse the consumer and pretend to be the brand when they are not.

In fact you can use the someone's trademark, logo, pictures etc all you want for the purposes of comparission advertising. This is done in the US all them time and both the FTC and Supreme Court have held it as legal as long as you do not 'defame' the other product and that the comparision are 'objective' in nature and truthful.

The only person 'using' the actual text of the Trademark is the consumer performing the search. The ad does not. As long as the ad does not try to confuse the consumer but rather gives the consumer *more* choices, I for one think everyone is served well.

If Dell computer decides to run an ad in Mac World Magazine to try to get Apple Computer enthusisats to switch to Dell, is that ok? Like the Google user, the Mac World reader is *looking* for info on the mac *not* Dell. Dell would clearly be 'trading' on the Apple Brand, wouldn't it? Is Mac World 'profiting' from this? You bet. Is it good for the consumer? You bet. Is it good capitalism? Yup!

Here is some basic info on the purpose of trademarks (Mods delete URL if you feel necessary, but it is good info) [copylaw.com ]

the key concept in my mind is:

"... the test for trademark infringement asks whether the ordinary buyer -- not looking for subtle differences or fine details -- would believe both products (or services) came from the same source. "